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How natural gas is converted into methanol at room temperature
Twenty years after the technique was developed, a collaboration be-
tween scientists at
KU Leuven (University of Leuven)
, Belgium, and
Stanford University
has revealed the mechanism behind the direct
conversion process of natural gas intomethanol at room temperature.
This discovery will have major for the future use of methanol in vari-
ous everyday applications.The findings were published in ‘Nature’.
Methanol is among the 20 most commonly used substances in
the chemical industry. It’s used to produce antifreeze, fuels, and
solvents, but also in various kinds of plastic that we use every day.
The substance is made from natural gas (methane).The large-scale
conversion of methane into methanol currently involves various
steps under high pressure and at a high temperature, making it a
process that requires a lot of energy.
In the nineties, therefore, scientists developed a more direct
method to produce methanol – a process that even produces extra
energy. However, scientists didn’t really understand the process. It
was a kind of ‘black box’ into which they inserted methane, with a
big chance that methanol would come out at the other end.
Twenty years later, postdoctoral researcher PieterVanelderen from
the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at KU Leuven (Uni-
versity of Leuven), Belgium, has unravelled the mechanism behind
the process in collaboration with chemists fromStanford University.
The chemical reaction involves adding a specific substance known
as a catalyst. Many catalysts consist of zeolites – minerals with a
porous framework – containing a specific atom. For the direct conver-
sion of methane into methanol, this catalyst is a zeolite with added
iron. Professor Bert Sels: “We found that the iron needs to bind to
the zeolite in a flat, bound orientation” (see Figure 1).
“We have provided the first exact definition of what the iron atom
looks like that is needed to convert methane into methanol at room
temperature. Furthermore, we can describe why this conversion
method is so successful,” explains PieterVanelderen.This discovery
may revolutionise the production of methanol and, by extension,
all its derivatives that we use in our everyday lives.
“This breakthrough has happened because we were the first
chemists to join forces with biochemists to work on this topic,”
saysVanelderen. “Our colleagues at Stanford are specialised in the
use of enzymes as catalysts in chemical reactions. Using methods
initially developed to study iron-containing enzymes, they managed
to take a ‘picture’, as it were, of what it is that happens to this iron-
containing zeolite during the conversion of methane into methanol.
This information allowed us to determine which specific iron atom
was doing the work and to find its exact location in the zeolite.”
Now that scientists know exactly what the catalyst looks like, they
can start imitating and optimising it in the lab.This opens up quite
a few possibilities for the future. For one thing, the production of
the methanol needed to produce plastic will become a lot cheaper.
The catalyst is also useful for the conversion of nitrogen oxides.
It could be used, for instance, to clean the exhaust fumes of cars.
Enquiries: Email
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Iron needs to bind to
the zeolite in a flat,
bound orientation.